2003 Little, Brown

The Dogs of Babel is about Paul Iverson, a linguistics professor whose wife, Lexy, is found dead in their backyard, at the foot of their giant apple tree. It's unclear whether Lexy fell or jumped from the tree, and the only witness to her death was the couple's dog, a Rhodesian Ridgeback named Lorelei. Paul becomes obsessed with finding out the details of Lexy's death and decides to see if he can teach Lorelei to communicate, so that she can tell him how Lexy died.

The narrative of Paul's quest to teach Lorelei to speak is mingled, through flashbacks, with the story of Paul and the eccentric, artistic Lexy's relationship: how they met, when they married, trips they took, etc. Meanwhile, Paul is becoming more and more obsessed with finding out the details of Lexy's death, and even finds himself getting entangled with a dangerous underground society whose goal is to teach dogs to speak by inhumane methods.

I really, really liked this book. It was a really quick, easy read but very emotional. At one point, this book made me sob like no other book ever has. Paul is a likable narrator, Lexy is a fascinating character and all of the passages about Lorelei just made me smile.